. . . a funny old life with multiple sclerosis

Tag Archives: accident

My magnificent bruising has been reclassified as a haematoma, which probably explains why I’m still hobbling around almost two weeks since my accident.

I was lucky enough to see one of our fabulous MS nurses at the Work and MS conference on Saturday and during a coffee break, I rolled my jeans down in the loos to show her the injury.

She carefully examined it and suggested I take myself off to Accident and Emergency to have it scanned in case there was an underlying fracture.

To cut a long story short, my mum took me that evening and the good news is, it’s just a haematoma, not a fracture. The bad news is, the only thing I can do is wait for the swelling to go down. It’s not going anywhere fast and neither am I. The pace of my life wasn’t particularly speedy before (take a bow, MS fatigue and foot drop) but has now slowed to a virtual stop.

I’ve been told to keep my leg elevated as much as possible, so needing no excuse to lie down and fill my brain with trashy tv when I should be slaving over an essay, my sofa is now almost permanently in use, much to the chagrin of the cat.

The Teenager marvels at my ‘cushy’ life and prods the lump on my leg in wonder. He’s very much enjoying visiting friends for tea after school and has perfected his sad face when talking to their parents, ‘oh, my mum’s dreadfully ill, she’s got this massive thing on her leg, the size of a rugby ball, honestly, she can barely speak, it’s that bad’ before gratefully accepting yet another chocolate roll or can of Coke.

I’m sure I’ll be back on my feet soon enough and will no doubt look back wistfully on my weeks at home when I go back to work. But I do miss the banter and bacon rolls and even my nickname, ‘Half-Shift’…

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I’ve been feeling oddly laid back about my recent accident, and it’s not all down to the painkillers. Or chocolate.

Like a lot of people I’ve spoken to over the last few years, coping with something life-changing such as MS puts things into perspective. Life is constantly throwing up obstacles and no one ever said it’d be easy.

But isn’t that the point? We expect things to tick along nicely – the fulfilling job, the blessed marriage, the nice house, the well-behaved kids – and in striving to achieve all that security, we bring the stress into our lives. When things go wrong, we can’t cope.

I read an article the other day about the American philosopher Alan Watts, who wrote ‘The Wisdom of Insecurity’, a radical approach to dealing with anxiety. He writes that in uncertain times, we respond by chasing after security in order to make the worry disappear, but the struggle to feel secure is the very thing that causes anxiety.

He puts the case that life is inherently insecure and the only way not to feel insecure is to dive straight into reality, with all its uncertainties.

Blimey. Mind-bending stuff for my MS brain, but I think without realising it, it’s the way I live now. I have struggled over the last decade to create security for me and The Teenager and it’s been a daily uphill slog. My anxiety levels have shot through the roof at times. And then one beautiful, sunny day, MS crashed into my life and smashed it to smithereens, unveiling the stark reality that there was in fact no security in my life at all.

So, post MS-devastation, I have handled this unexpected accident pretty well. It happened. It’s grim. But there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it and raging about how this has yet again brought chaos and uncertainty to my life won’t do me any good. Life is never secure and anyone living with MS knows that, so why not turn it to our advantage?

Forget the roses, I’m just like bamboo now – I sway with the wind but I won’t break.